By KEVIN BERGER, Local Journalism Initiative
The RM of Corman Park finished 2025 in a better financial position than expected, ending the year with a $3.5 million operating surplus.
That’s according to the 2025 audited financial statements, which were presented at the administration committee meeting on June 9 by Melissa Brewer of Jensen Stromberg Chartered Professional Accountants (CPAs).
The audited financial statements were accepted for information and later approved as part of the consent agenda at the June 23 council meeting.
Brewer, who had also presented the 2024 audited financial statements, started off by discussing the RM’s internal controls.
She specified that the type of audit conducted by her firm doesn’t specifically test the municipality’s internal controls, but they are assessed alongside other types of analytics.
This informal assessment would uncover red flags or areas that were in need of improvement, Brewer said. Those findings would be contained in a separate memo to council and the Ministry of Government Relations.
However, their assessment did not uncover any red flags, and in general administration had made some minor improvements based on their suggestions from last year.
Overall, “it was a clean audit and therefore nothing of material misstatement had been found,” she said.
Brewer then pointed out the RM’s net financial assets, which sit at $10.9 million at the end of 2025 — an increase of nearly $2 million from the previous year.
She explained this amount basically shows the RM’s ability to pay off debt with assets that can be relinquished, such as cash, investments and accounts receivable that can be collected on.
“When you are done paying off everything, you are left with $10.9 million. That’s what that number is telling you. So increasing it is a good sign,” she said.
She also noted the RM’s accumulated surplus of $66 million, which had increased by about $3.6 million since 2024.
Turning to the statement of operations, Brewer noted the RM took in about $500,000 more in revenue and spent about $750,000 less in expenses than what was originally budgeted, resulting in a surplus of $3.5 million.
According to the 2025 budget, the RM had originally projected to take in $26.348 million in revenue and spend $23.985 million for a total surplus of $2.362 million.
Finally, Brewer noted the RM’s cash flow, which was $18 million at the start of the year and grew to $21 million by the end.